Ask Ms. Robot about the Fairy Armadillos
Sep. 20th, 2005 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
benchiladaNow, I wrote you another short-ass story. Love it like you used to love your kids, before they started stealing your Rohypnol.
The EdCo theatre used to be a great place to see a movie, before they split it from one theatre into two, then from two into six. I went there for a special one dollar showing last night of Dr. Zhivago at three in the morning. It was in the tiniest theatre they have, more like a big room with a projection television. Turns out it was so cheap because the movie had been dubbed into Japanese and subtitled in Dutch.
It would
have been pretty boring if they hadn’t hired a stripper to chair-dance up in
front of the first row. She was pretty good, but seemed more interested in the
movie than in us. We found out at intermission that she was from Amsterdam, and
had been trying to follow the film. A couple in the front row let her sit with
them, and fed her popcorn, and Sno-Caps, and Junior Mints. I gave her my
twenty-five cent Cherry Pepsi refill.
When the
movie was over, she collected a few dollars from the box office and went off
into the night, still sans clothing,
down one of those streets that nobody ever goes down. I decided to get something
to eat.
I hit Shane’s,
a new restaurant a few blocks from my apartment. Their sign said “ALL
BREAKFAST, ALL DAY.” I sat at the counter and ordered three eggs, over hard, a
side of hash browns, a packet cigarettes, and a glass of water. I was only two
feet from the grill, and watched as a pimply-faced, sixty year old short order
cook threw about a cup of butter on the grill and broke three eggs over it
while it was still melting. Just like mom used to make. Time to hit the john.
I went to
the bathroom, then promptly added the place to my list of “joints I haven’t
taken a dump in.” A guy who looked kinda like the cook’s dad was throwing up in
the urinal, but I tried not to look…didn’t want to embarrass him. I opened the
regular stall and the baby-changing table was down, covered in what seemed to
be a mixture of blood and gravy. I switched to the handicapped stall, where
somebody had left their hook hand…in the can itself, point up. I could hold it
until I got home. As I left, I saw the sick guy trying to finish his dentures
out of his sick, where they had apparently gotten stuck on the little pink mint
at the bottom.
My food was
waiting for me when I got back. I opened the cigarettes first, lit one up, and
then took a mouthful of butter with egg. Delicious combination. The cook started
up an old cassette player behind the counter, and Billy Joel started serenading
us all.
“…And the
PIANO SOUNDS like a CARNIVAL…” he sang, and the waitress – with her nametag
reading “WAITRESS” – started crying. The cook started laughing and she spat in
his coffee. I double-checked my water – nothing floating in it, not even ice. I
asked for a bottle of mustard, but the cook kept laughing and the waitress kept
crying. I reached over the counter and grabbed my own, seeing a musical staff
covered in notes on the back of her ticket pad.
I never
shake my mustard, preferring to get that watery bit of separated vinegar onto
my hash browns first. The food went quickly, and I finished another cigarette
before I left. My cell rang as I was leaving my tip…it was Dad again, probably
asking if I’d score him a hit of junk. That was code for buy him some beer,
something he was unable to do in this county.
I dropped a
hundred on the counter for the waitress. The cook made a lunge for it, but she
swung one of those little glass syrup pitchers at him, smashing it on his forehead.
He flew back, shards sticking out of his skin, the syrup keeping the blood from
flowing. She grabbed the cash and jammed it down her skirt, looking at me with
eyes full of tears.
I
left before she could say something to ruin the moment.
###
b
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